FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT VINCE HALL - PAGE 2

Vince Hall and Eddie Royal make the most of their first starts for Virginia Tech, and they'll likely get more opportunities Saturday in the ACC opener vs. Duke. There were no pregame butterflies for first-time starters Vince Hall and Eddie Royal on Saturday. Moments before the start of Virginia Tech's 63-0 victory against Western Michigan, neither of them could wait to get on the field. The results showed why there were no jitters. Hall, a redshirt freshman who made his first start at middle linebacker, led Tech with 10 tackles, including 1 1/2 for losses.

Five weeks ago, Vince Hall was helpless. Missing the second of four games on Oct. 25 with a broken bone in his forearm, Virginia Tech's senior linebacker could only watch as Matt Ryan threw two touchdown passes in the final four minutes of Boston College's come-from-behind, 14-10 victory in Blacksburg. On Saturday, Hall was back on the field, and he was having none of Ryan's heroics. With the Eagles facing fourth-and-4 from the Hokies' 13-yard line and Ryan scrambling to avoid a sack, Hall stepped in front of the quarterback's desperate throw with 2:16 left.

Virginia Tech's defensive coordinator used an earlier pair to teach linebackers Vince Hall and Xavier Adidbi. While Virginia Tech linebackers Xavier Adibi and Vince Hall were redshirting in 2003, defensive coordinator Bud Foster gave them an education. Adibi and Hall were two of the best players in the state of Virginia coming out of high school, but that meant nothing to Foster once the duo got to Tech. Foster had coached linebackers with half their reputations who wound up being all-Big East material.

As linebacker Vince Hall prepared to wrap his arms around running back Josh Oglesby in Virginia Tech's practice Monday, Hall committed a sin he's rarely guilty of on a football field. He hesitated, and Oglesby was gone. Hall missed the tackle. Such miscues don't happen often in Hall's world, but this was his first full-contact practice since breaking two bones in his left forearm and wrist Oct. 6 against Clemson. That excuse wasn't good enough for Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster.

You could almost picture it: Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer sitting in his office Wednesday, shining up a golf club and chatting with the media on a teleconference about the aftermath of national signing day. Beamer's banterings about future tee times were the best indication all was well with the Hokies after 23 prospects signed letters of intent to Virginia Tech. Hampton Roads had plenty to do with Beamer's rosy outlook. In the five days leading up to national signing day, the Hokies gained commitments from three of the nation's top defensive prospects, all area products.

RECIPE FOR SUCCESS Tech must have consistent play and good decision-making from the starting quarterback. Branden Ore has to have running lanes, and the defense will have to be nearly as good as it has been the past two seasons. RECIPE FOR DISATER Injuries to starters on the offensive line would create serious depth problems. The Hokies have five freshmen or sophomores in the two-deep on its offensive line, which is too much inexperience. WHEN WILL THEY BE DONE? Tech should go into the Virginia game with a 10-1 or 9-2 record, which might not be enough to be first in the Coastal Division if one of those losses is to Miami.

Knoxville, Tenn., is a long way from home for Phoebus High's Xavier Adibi. When two universities like Tennessee and Virginia Tech want you to play football for them, distance can make all the difference. It did. Adibi, a 6-foot-2, 210-pound linebacker, committed to Virginia Tech on Tuesday. He will follow in his brother, Nathaniel's, footsteps. Nathaniel is a rising senior defensive end for the Hokies. "The distance was a big factor," Xavier said. "I talked to my brother about it and he said when everybody else had a chance to go home for the weekend (from Tennessee)

Tech's inexperience is exposed in Saturday night's loss, but there is plenty of good, too. It isn't often a coach can breathe a sigh of relief after a loss, but that was Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer's reaction Saturday night following his team's 24-13 loss to No. 1 Southern California. Maybe his young team would be all right after all. Big contributions from receivers Josh Hyman and Eddie Royal, linebackers Xavier Adibi and Vince Hall and defensive end Chris Ellis -- all freshmen or redshirt freshmen -- left Beamer with a positive impression of what he had just witnessed.

With the recent decision to allow college football teams to play 12 games, Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer thinks the NCAA should let athletes compete for five years. Several things about college football -- chiefly, the lack of a playoff system -- make little sense. But the idea of giving players the opportunity to compete for five years is a no-brainer to Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer. Before speaking to a packed house of 300 boosters at The Smithfield Center on Thursday night, Beamer said adding a fifth year of eligibility "makes perfect sense all the way around."

As much as Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer would like to hear less discussion about on-field issues that occurred Thursday night in his team's 22-3 loss to Boston College, the talk is not going away anytime soon. Several Tech players talked with media Tuesday about the poor behavior ESPN's cameras and commentators featured in its coverage of the Tech-BC game. Beamer wasn't interested in joining the discussion. "I've talked about the past as much as I want to talk about it," Beamer said.